eat, move, think, feel

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emotions

It’s been a few weeks of adjusting to sleeping with the CPAP mask for my sleep apnea. I’m not gonna lie. It has not been easy. I was really hoping that after a few nights of using it, I was going to feel super energetic, chipper (“genki” in Japanese) and awesome. But no. The issue is that even though I am breathing better, with fewer episodes of non-breathing, I am sleeping much more fitfully than before.

Before this diagnosis, I was sleeping straight through, long nights, but breathing terribly (which I was never really aware of). NOW, I wake up many times during the night. And I’ve got this THING on my face. Which I do not enjoy. Well, to be honest, sometimes the thing ends up on the floor. The second night I wore it, I apparently fought with it in my sleep and I woke up to find it in multiple pieces on the floor next to my bed. (not broken, just completely disassembled!)

I took it with me on vacation. One night, I woke up and I was just so dang uncomfortable. I hated the feeling of this rubber triangle covering my nose, and straps around my head. But I thought, just hang in there. I lay there being hyper-aware of every breath and every little indentation into my skin. I was awake for hours.

But the frustrating thing was, I didn’t NEED to wear it for hours while I was awake. The thing with sleep apnea is, it only happens when you’re ASLEEP. So basically I was lying there feeling tortured, for nothing. After several hours of this I was beside myself, so I ripped it off. Then I promptly rolled over and fell dead asleep. Of course.

When I woke up, hours later, I realized that I had spent half the night awake, (with the mask on my face) and then the early morning hours asleep, without the mask. I broke into hysterical sobs. I had been trying SO hard to be compliant, to do the right thing, and ended up doing exactly the wrong thing.

I’ve had better nights since then. I’ve made it sometimes six or seven hours. When I wear the mask, I’ve had fewer than one “breath interruption” per hour, in contrast to the 37+ I was having PER HOUR before. (!!) So that’s good.

But I’m sort of heartbroken. I feel like this beautiful relationship I used to have with sleep, and my bed, has been shattered. I used to love going to bed, and love sleeping. I was in love with sleep, and I felt so lucky to not have it be a fraught kind of thing. But now it is fraught. It is super-fraught. I dread going to bed. I dread that moment of putting the mask on my head, and trying to find a comfortable position that will allow me to sleep without letting air hiss and leak all over. I’ve found that it’s much easier to deal with if I go to bed when I’m really, really, really tired. (so I don’t have much consciousness or energy to fight it) Which means I’m going to bed super late. And waking up much later than before.

Overall, I admit I’m getting more used to it. I signed up with the website that manufactures my particular CPAP machine and it has all kinds of helpful tips and videos. One woman who appears in several videos said that it took her 3 months to adjust to her machine. Three months!! That was a bit of shock, but it also encouraged me to not expect it to be all good right away.

One of the most moving parts of the website was a video about “Getting Used to Treatment.” It featured a Woman of a Certain Age who was worried about her relationship with her husband. She was bummed about wearing a mask every night. She was wearing flannel PJs (like me) and kind of looked like a sad elephant. But her extremely kind looking husband leaned over and tweaked her trunk-tube a little, and just looked at her in this extremely loving way (as opposed to, You look like a TOTAL FREAK) and then she felt better and was able to deal with it. My eyes actually filled up when I saw this because this is just how Mr. McBody has been dealing. He’s been very reassuring and supportive and kind. And that is why we are now going on our 28th year together. He’s just like that.

I hope that by the time I get to my 3-month mark, this will just be an automatic thing, no big deal. And that I’ll fall in love with falling asleep again.

Today marks my 30th day of eating Paleo. Woo!!! I’ve had a lot of surprises this month. Here’s my recap.

First, I learned to love a lot of things I either never liked before, or had never given much of a try. But given that I was someone who used to go through more than a quart of half-and-half a week (NO KIDDING), I had to figure some things out.

First off, was dealing with what to put in my coffee and tea. I tried coconut milk and almond milk. They were unacceptable. (in my drinks) Finally, I realized that all the joy had been sucked out of my caffeinated beverages, so I might as well just stop drinking them. The result? Not so much of a problem. I just stopped. Now, when I wake up in the morning, I just eat FOOD. And have some water. It’s fine. I’ve adjusted. Weirdly, I notice that I am, overall, MUCH MORE ALERT than when I was drinking caffeine. So there’s that. I realized that my coffee-and-tea drinking was a habit. A nice one. But it didn’t kill me to just switch to water. If you had told me this any time in the past few decades, I would not have believed it. I miss the ritual of coffee, the smell of it, the nice way that a warm mug feels in my hands. But I’ve survived that.

Then, the issue of actual “drinking” milk. I was also a big fan of drinking a glass of milk, like, for pleasure. Lo and behold, I discovered that I also liked goat milk, which apparently some people on Paleo (or is it primal?) enjoy. I did feel a little cheatish though, in addition to feeling like Heidi, enjoying her grandfather’s goats’ milk up in the Alps. I tried a few almond milks. BLECH. Then, something in the super-fancy packaging of this Pop & Bottle brand caught my eye one day when I was at the little market near my office. Yeah, this tiny little 10 oz bottle cost $6.00. But I decided to try it, and YUM. I mean, YUM. I just hope I can figure out a way to replicate it. I’ll just save it as a special treat though, since I’m not eating desserts or drinking alcohol.

Oh, yeah?! What about dessert?? Well, I did indulge in birthday cake (twice!) during the month. The first time, I was pretty sure I would die if I didn’t get to have a piece. So after much agonizing, I did. It was delicious. The second time, at the end of week 3, I figured I would enjoy another piece for dear Mr McBody’s birthday. Totally different experience. I could TELL that it was “good,” ie. high-quality, but it just didn’t have that same delicious sensation. I had a couple of forkfuls and then left it. I developed a real fondness for eating fresh raspberries with coconut cream when I wanted dessert. But the need for daily desserts really reduced drastically.

One of the best results, ever.

One of the very best things, though, has been the impressive reduction in my blood sugars. This number on the left is really the lowest I have ever seen it, since I began testing it in 2009. This was pretty dramatic.

I went to see my new doctor yesterday and had all my labs drawn. EVERYthing was in normal range, and especially my cholesterol and lipids were stellar. So there’s that.

But… how WAS it?! It wasn’t all easy. The first week was tough. After around 2-3 weeks, most of my craving for particular foods went away. But it was replaced by a strange sadness, like a mourning of the relationship I used to have with food. Which was, in many ways, like a love affair. I LOVED cheese. I LOVED certain kinds of desserts, and bread, and butter and so many delicious things.

The 30 Days are over. So now what? Well, yesterday I gave myself some sourdough bread with some real butter on it. It was… meh. I mean, I could’ve taken or left it. Today, I had a slice of homemade veggie pizza. Now that? That was pretty darn good.

Since starting on February 1st, I’m down more than ten pounds. This feels good. I’ve been trying to shed these pounds for the good part of a year, and this is the first time I’ve seen a steady decrease on a consistent basis in a long time. So I’m going to keep going. I might have a few non-Paleo treats once or twice a week, but I’m not going back to my pre-Paleo days.

This major re-setting of my food intake has been pretty dramatic. I’ve never eliminated so many different food groups ALL AT ONCE before. I learned that it didn’t kill me. Maybe quite the opposite. I’m feeling pretty alive.

Last week, after I spoke on a panel on reproductive stigma and justice, an audience member came up to me and said, “I know you.” I looked at her. I didn’t recognize her at all – a warm smile, brown skin, dimples. I squinted and said, “Really!” She said, “You’re Foodie McBody. I follow your blog!”

I was overwhelmed by a storm of thoughts and emotion. What blog? Hahaha. I haven’t posted a thing in months. And who? Foodie McWho? That person was a person who had receded so far away from me. I’d changed my Twitter handle and Instagram name, and nobody called me that anymore.

Foodie McBody was a person who, once upon a time, took her health by the reins and galloped into a transformation. There were years of glory. The first 5k! The Weight Watchers Lifetime key! The 10ks, the half marathons. Four of them. The two triathlons and more 5ks than I could count. I loved my health and loved my active body and I was just proud and glad, even through the struggles. I had little bouts here and there – a sprained ankle, a wrist flareup. But they all resolved within a month or two, and then I was back in the saddle again.

But then 2013 happened. I call it my year of pain. When my hip gave up after the Oakland half marathon, my last, and told me I might need to get it replaced. And then the fateful bounce on the trampoline that ruptured my cervical discs and brought me to a halt. When I could do nothing more than move, agonizingly, from one horizontal position to the next. Surgery, recovery and rehab in small, tentative steps.

2014 was supposed to be my comeback year. But it has not been that. After a brief triumphant walking 5k at the start of the year, I have been plagued by a thyroid condition that stalled my metabolism, and a foot ailment that won’t let up. Plantar fasciitis turned to posterior tibialis tendinitis leading to some sort of Achilles problem. My Achilles heel, indeed. Every morning I hobble out of bed like a 90 year old. Actually, I hobble out of bed more painfully and slowly than my own 92 year old mother, which is humbling, to say the least.

my Achilles heel

Do I want some cheese with my whine? Well, why not.

2014 has been the year of humble. But if I’m honest I also have to admit that it’s been a year of fear. Recently our family re-watched Spirited Away, one of those hallucinogenic Miyazaki films. One of the most disgusting images is this creature, the Hungry Ghost, that eats everything in sight – frogs, bicycles, humans, and keeps wanting more. It grows into a mountainous blob of sludge, its arms outstretched, and stinkily consumes everything in sight. When our young heroine refuses to be intimidated by the ghost, and doesn’t run away from it, it starts expelling the contents of its innards. Finally it shrinks to a fraction of its enormous size, and silently boards an underwater train, presumably bound for freedom.

That image has haunted me. And I think that that creature is like my fear. It reminds me of the Before version of Foodie McBody. Before I charged into healthy living in 2009, I was afraid of everything. Afraid to move. Even when it felt good.

For much of the time these days, I am paralyzed by fear. Only recently I’ve been able to venture into small, almost laughable activities. I join a weekly AquaFIt class at our pool, where most of the participants are ten, twenty or even thirty years my senior. For an hour we splash around the pool with foam weights and noodles. It feels like play, but when I climb out of the pool, I have to admit it’s kicked my butt.

I walk silently in the redwood forest near my house. Today I did a silent walk and in the quiet green I thought about my fear. The sky was white, a little blue, like the inside of an ice cube. The air I moved through was chilly and perfect, and the sun blinked uncertainly through the clouds every now and then. What am I afraid of? I am afraid of pain. My left heel sent out little jolts. So what, I said. So what. It’s not killing you. I notice. What do I notice. It’s like electricity. It’s like heat. It’s like a twangy little song reminding me that I’m alive. I liked the feeling of my legs. I still have muscles there. They’re still strong. I pushed up the gentle incline and I didn’t wheeze. I didn’t die from shortness of breath. I was doing it. It was just a walk. Calm down, I told myself. You’re okay. There’s nothing to be afraid of.

Worse than the pain, though, is the shame. The pain of shame. Of knowing where I was three years ago, that relentless athlete that swam in the icy, salty bay. The one who looked fear in the face and climbed on the bicycle, up hills, up so many hills, near whizzing cars and dogs. I ran and ran and ran. Three or four days a week, tweeting about my six pain free miles, my happy eight miles. These days I would consider it a victory to walk a 5k, to make it around Lake Merritt without sitting down, without limping. This is the greatest pain. To look in my closet and push aside the majority of the clothes, because nothing fits.

How to find compassion? That is what I want for 2015. The year of compassion. To say, it’s all right. You’re okay, whether you never complete another triathlon again. Whether those 15 pounds stick around like old friends. You’re okay. You’re okay.

These days do not look like 2010 or 2011. These days look like walking in the beautiful trees, like greeting my gray haired companions in the shallow end of the pool. Of meditating every morning, first in silence and then listening to the calm, warm voice of my teacher, leading me through the compassion meditation. Open to the possibility of being kind to yourself, he says. Open to the possibility of appreciating your life.

Ah, this blog has become such a litany of woes, I might as well just re-name it “I’m Getting Old, Falling Apart and Whining About It.” Seriously, though. Really?

No sooner had I gotten over the bummershock of having a faulty thyroid, than I began waking up with excruciating, hobble-inducing, holding-onto-walls heel pain. It had started out as a dull ache which I not very brightly ignored. Then while we were on our lovely vacation in San Miguel de Allende, which involved miles of tromping around on picturesque cobblestone streets, lo and behold it worsened every day. I think my foot liked those pretty streets very much.

Plantar fasciitis. OW.

And it pretty much put me off walking except when absolutely necessary, and running, like ever. WAHHH!

More travel happened. A long weekend in Louisiana for an amazing family reunion. Boatloads of crab (no exaggeration at all!). Ten thousand percent humidity. Aching heel. No movement. Pathetic thyroid. All this adding up to… more weight gain, overall bummedeness, etc.

More travel. Back to California, and straight to Pact Camp. Intense emotions, busy days. NO time to deal with anything. But along the way, I’ve been picking up suggestions and ideas from fellow PF sufferers. Rub your foot with a metal spoon. Icing. Dansko clogs. Splints.

But now I’ve been home a few days, and I’m re-grouping. One great thing that happened while I was zigzagging around the country is that Carla favorite a tweet that said something about The Sock.

Then, shortly after, Frank answered.

I clicked on the link for the Sock. I watched the video. It was designed by a physical therapist! My people! I sure liked the IDEA of a sock rather than a rigid splint, which I knew would drive me insane within minutes. I read a ton of enthusiastic reviews, and then I ordered.

It arrived yesterday. I put it on before I went to bed. I already had a feeling that keeping my ankle/foot at a 90 degree angle, even if in a flexy sort of way, would be radical. I like to sleep on my stomach or my side, and my feet are pretty much in high-ballerina position all night. Yes, my heel cord was getting SUPER tight.

I didn’t apply it super tightly. I’d read warnings about numb toes and such, if it was too tight. I didn’t want to freak out myself or my toes.

I woke up this morning. The proof is in the STANDING UP, which is normally when I double over from pain and have to grab at the bedpost to stay upright. And then I hop to the bathroom on one foot. It’s not nice.

But this morning — I had the dull ache, but it was equal to what I normally feel after hours of walking around. It was GREATLY improved.

I have been so very discouraged and bummed about this, I didn’t want to write about it until I felt at least a glimmer of hope. Well, it’s glimmering. Here’s to turning a corner and having no new parts fall apart for a while.

I’ve been trying not to feel too sorry for myself when I see friends out and running or walking 5ks, 10ks, half marathons, triathlons every weekend. But I tell myself, I’ll be back. And now I think I might even believe it, a little bit.

Five years into being diagnosed with type II diabetes, I finally felt like I had come to some sort of peaceful relationship with it. I felt like I was managing the best I could, and was really pleased late last year when my endocrinologist decided to discontinue my oral medications. I hadn’t even been considering that as a goal, so when she suggested it, I was both surprised and happy. She said I was doing great. YAY ME!

I was interviewed (and photographed) by Diabetes Health Monitor magazine (a staple in endocrinologist offices everywhere!) and feeling pretty darned good about it all.

Then, a couple of months ago, things started changing. My blood sugars started bumping up. Then they bumped some more. They went higher than I’d ever seen before. I panicked. I called my endocrinologist and begged her to let me resume the medications. She said okay, and resumed my lowest dose. Sigh.

Then my weight started inching up at a steady rate, despite my doing basically nothing different than I had in the past five years. Now, I’ve been doing Weight Watchers for a long time. And I’ve learned that when I see a surprise gain at the scale, there’s always been a reason. An indulgent weekend. A sedentary retreat. Any of those things. But I’ve always easily been able to right the ship, and come back on course within a very short time.

This time, not so much. I mean, not at all. That in spite of all my best efforts, the ship was not righting. Every few days I’d step on the scale, and every time, it was higher than the time before.

I was starting to freak out. I was starting to dread my WW meetings (which I LOVE) for fear of being called out as fraudulent, bogus, the works. I was getting frantic that my clothes were getting to be terribly ill-fitting (or non-fitting). My torso was starting to resemble that of a 2nd trimester pregnancy. And I wanted to sleep, like, ALL THE TIME.

What the hell!

For a while, I was in silent paralysis. I couldn’t discuss it or deal with it at all, I was so freaked out. But then I called my doctor(s) who recommended thyroid testing. (and: lo and behold, thyroid problems can cause out of control blood glucose!) An ultrasound revealed an enlarged thyroid. Next step: blood tests. I had the tests last week and this week, while on vacation with my family, I received emails from both doctors. Normal TSH levels are .5-5, and mine is 9. Bingo.

I’m trying not to be all WHY ME? about this, but damn. Come ON. Okay. So what do I do. I start taking thyroid supplements. I start figuring out how to manage THIS chronic disease.

Part of me is really, really pissed off. But part of me is relieved. That it’s not worse. (it can always be worse, right?) And that this condition has a treatment. For which I am very grateful. I can’t wait for it to start WORKING! (this could take weeks–>months)

As I did when I first started this blog, and basically with every time I’ve every struggled, I know that reaching out with the struggle is better than struggling alone. I know that finding community and support is better than flailing around alone.

I just did a little thing that felt like such a BIG thing. I changed my Twitter handle, which has been @foodiemcbody forever. But for the last six months or a year I’ve felt like so much MORE than Foodie McBody. Many people I interact with now, in the writing world and beyond, don’t recognize or know Foodie.

It makes me feel really emotional to make this change. I first took on the name Foodie McBody as an anonymous name when I started this blog. Because I was ashamed of who I was. I was diabetic and overweight and unfit and desperate. I wanted to reach out for community and help, but I was embarrassed to be in the world as ME, Susan Ito. And that’s how Foodie came about.

When I started feeling better about myself, I shed that anonymity. For a long time I was really proud to be Foodie McBody. And I still am. But I’m more than that now. I’m a writer, a memoirist, a physical therapist, a teacher. Sometimes those selves fit with Foodie, and sometimes they don’t.

Last weekend I took a fabulous food-writing class at the San Francisco Writers’ Grotto. We were visited by guest speaker Virginia Miller, who blogs over at The Perfect Spot and also writes for Zagat. (!) I realized in that moment that FoodFoodBodyBody has been and is a food blog. And the writing that I did that day could live here. It was a huge sigh of happiness, the recognition that I could integrate these parts of myself.

For a long time I believed that my fitness stole my writing, and then that my writing could steal my fitness. All of it takes time, after all. Following my injury and surgery in the fall, I’ve definitely been more in the writing world. Trying to find that balance again. But I have deep love for the Foodie McBody part of myself, and deep love for my writing life. @thesusanito is an attempt to bring it all together in one self. I hope those of you who met me as Foodie will continue to be my wonderful healthy community, and those who never knew Foodie will learn about who that part of me is/was.

Did you ever feel like your identity was fragmented? What have you done to bring it all together?

So many things have helped me on my path to health, but one that I have been practicing for over 25 years is the retreat. I love this word. It means to take a step back; it means to take refuge. It also means to re-treat: to treat oneself, again. I first came to Santa Sabina in the mid-eighties, when I was a budding calligrapher (little known fact). I signed up for the Friends of Calligraphy retreat, not really knowing what I was getting into.

It took my breath away. Silence, and beauty. The scratching of pens on paper in what had been set up as the Scriptorium. Words on paper (or on walls). A great spaciousness. My mind was blown.

Once I started coming to this place, I felt I craved it like one craves chocolate, or oxygen. Once or twice a year (especially when I had babies and small children), I would slip away for twenty-four hours, to step into the quiet corners. I could climb the steps to the straw-bale Hermitage and “be the hermit” for a brief while.

Sometimes I came on my own, or with other writer friends. Sometimes I came with groups- calligraphers or poets. I experienced several amazing poetry weekends – one focusing on the work of Rilke, others with Jane Hirshfield and Naomi Shihab Nye. There is poetry everywhere here, and art. The art basement is a generous space filled with art supplies of all kinds – a calligraphers’ nook, a collage room. It invites gentle creativity.

Several years ago, I began offering group retreats myself at Santa Sabina. It has been one of my greatest joys. Two years ago, I led a retreat called Stories of the Body. Participants came together to share stories through collage, art, writing, movement, and to be with their own bodies’ stories in silence and reflection and silent, mindful meals. It was so moving and beautiful. I have been trying to book a date for a return visit for years, but the center has been undergoing many renovations and there have not been dates open — until now! I am thrilled to be offering Stories of the Body again at the end of March.

There’s an early-bird discounting until January 28th, and I’m also offering a discount to YOU, blog readers. (you can take advantage of both!) For readers of this blog, just enter the codeFOODFOODBODYBODY and you’ll get an additional reduction in price. I am also offering a deposit option with extended payments for those who cannot pay all at once.

I am hoping to be able to offer a weekend scholarship for one retreat assistant to this retreat this year. The work involved would be minimal but of great help to me (registration, set-up, logistics). If you feel that you would benefit from this special time away (and into yourself), please email me with the following:

Why you feel this retreat would benefit you at this time

Your commitment to attend if chosen

Experience in dealing with groups (ie your “people skills”)

DEADLINE: February 1, 2014

Exercise and eating well have been so elemental in my health journey, but this – THIS- has been an invaluable element that I often forget. Being with myself. Taking time for the quiet. I hope you will join us.

About a month ago, I got an email from someone at a diabetes publication, saying they’d found my blog and wanted to interview me. Yay! I like doing interviews. I was feeling good about my 5-year (!) healthaversary coming up, and it felt great to commemorate it like this. Five years!

The phone interview was fun. I blathered on. The writer who was interviewing me asked a lot about advice I’d give someone who was newly diagnosed. I realized the stuff that helped me then is the stuff that continues to help me now; i.e.. small changes. That is why Weight Watchers, Couch to 5k , #wycwcy (What-You-Can-When-You-Can) and other small, gradual steps have made all the difference, both at the beginning and on an ongoing basis. In many ways, I am starting from the beginning again.

After the interview, the writer said they could find some pictures here from my blog, or I could send some. Then a few days later I got an email saying that they’d like to “send a photographer.” SEND a photographer? Here?

Yes. And then last week I heard from the photographer herself. I had NO IDEA what big-deal photos she had taken (look here and have a heart attack like I did). She informed me that I was going to be on the COVER of the magazine and did I have a hair stylist? A makeup person? (#faint) I hurriedly went to check out this magazine and saw… 40 million readers… and the people on the cover? Gulp. Looked to be about twenty years old.

It threw me into a tizzy of anxiety, nerves, wanting to eat Everything In Sight, and just have a general meltdown.

Monday came. My hair stylist (aka my regular person who sweetly offered to come to my house before work) and my Makeup Person (friend of mine, who I had a vague idea “did makeup” but again had no clue what a pro she is!) arrived. I threw every piece of clothing I owned onto my bed in a fit of despair and I-Have-NOTHING-To-Wear!!

The hair blowout was fine. I was used to that. But then… the makeup… OMG.

The photographer arrived early, to “scout out” the house and surroundings for suitable backdrops. She decided on the front porch and “yard” (it’s more of an overgrown jungle). She got her equipment set up while I got my Face on. It took like 90 minutes which was fascinating and also kind of overwhelming. I felt like a painter’s canvas! But the end result was the most natural makeup I’ve ever worn and I still felt pretty much like me. Whew.

me + Junior, and sans glassesShe’s not messin around. So… I guess they didn’t like the Instagram selfie I sent in?

We took about a gazillion shots on the front porch and in the yard. Many outfit changes. Sweaters. Scarves. Running clothes. Medals. No medals. Rocky shot! I have-to-pee shot! (apparently this “elongates” the body- who knew? one could look so svelte when waiting in line at Portopotties?) We even went up to the park nearby (where I usually run) and I did some fake-running while she photographed me from her belly on the very edge of the trail. I pretty much had to run OVER her body while she exhorted me to “Keep coming at me, at me, at me!!” She had to do a costume change herself when we got back to to the house, so encrusted she was in trail stuff.

She really worked for her money that day!Here she demonstrates the “have to pee” pose. Very elongated!

It turned out to be, after all, a lot more fun and a lot less stressful than I anticipated. The stress happened before and… after.

It was pretty trippy to do this. It messed with my head in various ways. Of all the magazines to be on the cover of, I was pretty proud and happy to be on a diabetes health magazine. (the only one I could ever hope for is to be on the cover of THIS magazine) I loved doing the interview. But the focus on my physical appearance for hours on end was just unnerving. I’m not used to it, and it just made me all discombobulated. I got really unbalanced. I sort of lost it a little. I was anxious and moody and jumpy and weepy. I found myself thinking crazy thoughts like, I hope they PhotoShop me. (even though I am so against that kind of thing!)

Going for a run-walk near the beach brought me back to myself yesterday. As did returning to a beginning meditation class this week. This is tricky stuff, y’all…

A couple of weeks ago I sweated for the first time since September. It was a gentle, beautiful, emotional and extraordinary experience. I went to a Nia class, which was one of the very first kinds of movement I ever did, five years ago. Danielle was the instructor, and it was one of her final classes before she leaves for a two-year journey to China. One of the other dancers was Alexis (pictured in my post here 2009). She brought her adorable six-month old baby with her, and danced with her in a front carrier. Her gentle, modified moves were perfect for me, just creakily getting back into movement. She didn’t bend as low or hop in the air or do any sudden moves. Just gentle.

babydancing

Because it was Winter Solstice weekend, Danielle did a routine called Mandala that involved no spoken instruction. She moved, we followed, and she indicated transitions by clapping her hands. It felt so organic and wonderful. And the music? It made me tear up immediately. She played the music of Kitaro, which brought back really intense memories of a long ago time…

……………………..

Back in one of my first home health physical therapy jobs when I was in my twenties, I had a patient named Oscar. He had a really advanced spinal cord tumor which had left him with paraplegia. I first worked with him in the hospital and then at his home. After some time it became clear that he was not getting better. His final desires were to walk again, however limited, and to go home to his homeland of Argentina. None of his doctors believed in either of these goals as either possible or advisable, but he was a determined guy.

When I visited him at home, he played Kitaro for me for the first time. “Listen,” he said, and he put these huge cushy headphones over my ears. This was at the very beginning of “New Age” music, and I’d never heard anything like it. He believed that it was magical. That it would help him walk. And one day I’ll never forget, he played this music through speakers in his living room, and step by step, he walked about ten steps across the floor. I was holding him by two shaking hands with a gait belt, and pulling his wheelchair by nudging it with my toe, and both of us were sweating bullets. But to the soundtrack of this incredible otherworldly music, he took his last walk.

Next, he asked me to take him to Macy’s in San Francisco so he could buy a traveling outfit – new pants and a jacket, and gifts for his family. It took all that I had to transfer his unwieldy body and his heavy wheelchair into my little Toyota hatchback, but we made it. I wheeled him all through that department store and helped him stand up (in physical therapy terms, using Maximum Assist) so he could see himself in a full length mirror. As we were leaving he said he wanted me to have a gift, and he bought me this beautiful ivory colored poet shirt with huge billowing sleeves. Because you are really a writer, he said. (yeah, he knew) Shortly after, he got onto a plane to Argentina and that was the last I ever heard from him. I assume he made it home for his final wish. But that was one of the most moving and meaningful experiences I ever had as a therapist.

I was young. Super young. And in retrospect I broke all kinds of rules I probably or maybe wouldn’t do now: I took a patient somewhere in my own car (liability no-no!). I accepted a gift from a patient, and lunch too. All these things are super frowned upon now (and probably then as well!). But that experience changed me.

……………………..

Hearing Kitaro again in this return-to-movement class was terribly emotional for me. Danielle was leaving. Oscar had been leaving. I was returning to something I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to do again. All of this without words, but in stretching and turning and circling around the room. I had a hard time keeping the tears in. (so I didn’t)

Danielle has been an amazing teacher for me – graceful and strong and fun. I will miss her Michael Jackson Nia classes, her Halloween class, all of them. She sent out so much healing energy to me when I was hurt and I really felt her caring. I will miss her. I’m glad I got to experience her Nia one last time before she goes. Godspeed Danielle, and thank you. oxoxo